The Hunts Point produce market may soon bid farewell to the city.
The privately run wholesale fruit and vegetable cooperative is looking for a new home after the city refused to fork over $150 million to help build a new facility in the southeast Bronx, The Post has learned.
The market’s shareholders currently are scouring the region for another location close to a major highway or rail system for easy distribution of fruits and vegetables, sources said.
Consultants hired by the co-op last year determined that the market – built in 1967 as a wholesale market for restaurants and grocers – “will outgrow its capacity in five years,” said a source.
The co-op’s current 30-year lease expires in three years and several top-level meetings have been held over the past few months with city officials to determine the future of the city’s food supply.
Plans that would create an entirely “green” project of two new buildings totaling 400,000 square feet have been prepared.
“It would keep the air clear . . . by reducing its current air pollution by 80 percent, use solar and geothermal power and possibly methane generation for electricity,” said the source.
But the $750 million project to build a new facility in Hunts Point has been estimated by the co-op to cost $500 million in another location, sources said.
Janel Patterson, a spokeswoman for the Economic Development Corp., said the co-op “has not made us aware of any plans to relocate out of the city.”
Patterson added, “We value the market for its significant impact on the city of New York. We are in preliminary discussions with the cooperative to develop a viable for plan to develop a new facility to meet its growing needs.”
If the produce market leaves the city, it would be more costly for small grocers and bodegas to travel to a location further away to purchase crates of fruits and vegetables – possibly driving up costs for the consumers across the five boroughs.
The Hunts Point Food Distribution Center – which includes separate meat and fish markets and is the largest wholesale market in the world – provides food for the entire tri-state area.
In 2005, Hunts Point be came the site for the city’s New Fulton Fish Market, which replaced the 180-year-old fish market located in lower Manhat tan.
As a whole, the three markets’ revenues exceed $2 billion annually – more than any similar facility in the world.